Tweets, work, golf: President Trump back in Florida groove

After a reported round of golf at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach on Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017, President Donald Trump's motorcade exits the club heading west along Summit Blvd. around 2:20 pm. (Damon Higgins / The Palm Beach Post)

Although he’s been away from Mar-a-Lago for more than seven months, it didn’t take President Donald Trump very long on Wednesday to get back into the familiar rhythms of South Florida presidential life: setting Twitter ablaze before sunrise, conducting some official business and visiting his nearby golf course.

The president is back at his tropical White House for the first time since Easter. He arrived Tuesday night with first lady Melania Trump and son Barron for an extended Thanksgiving holiday.

If he does visit his Jupiter club, drivers and holiday shoppers may face traffic tie-ups as his motorcade makes its way between Mar-a-Lago and the club just northeast of Donald Ross Road and Alternate A1A.

Ball, known for a Trumpian immodesty when discussing the athletic prowess of himself and his three basketball-playing sons, has refused to thank the president for helping secure the release of his son and two other UCLA players who were arrested in China for shoplifting. Trump branded Ball an “ungrateful fool” in one of his pre-dawn tweets on Wednesday.

Trump was also briefed early Wednesday on the crash of a U.S. Navy jet into the sea near Japan, White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters told reporters.

Trump also told Twitter followers he planned to be “having meetings and working the phones from the Winter White House in Florida (Mar-a-Lago).” Tax reform will be among the issues Trump discusses in his calls from Florida this week, Walters said.

At around 9:15 a.m., Trump left Mar-a-Lago for the 4½-mile drive to his Trump International Golf Club on Summit Boulevard just west of West Palm Beach.

As presidential motorcades go, Trump’s trek to the golf course and his return to Mar-a-Lago nearly five hours later weren’t as disruptive as his standard motorcade to or from the airport. Rather than shut down Southern Boulevard completely, police briefly blocked some key intersections as the president passed and allowed traffic to continue in the opposite direction.

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

President Donald Trump’s motorcade arrives at Trump International Golf Club west of West Palm Beach on Wednesday morning, November 22, 2017. (Bruce R. Bennett / The Palm Beach Post)

At night, Trump tweeted once from Mar-a-Lago, retweeting his daughter Ivanka and saying the economy would improve with his proposed tax cuts.

During seven presidential visits to Mar-a-Lago between February and April, Trump played golf an estimated 14 times at Trump International. He shook up his Florida routine once in February by golfing at Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Trump’s golf outings are often shrouded in mystery, perhaps because as a private citizen and then as a presidential candidate he often accused former President Barack Obama of spending too much time on the links.

“I love golf. It think it’s one of the greats, but I don’t have time,” Trump said at a 2015 rally in which he complained that Obama “played more golf last year than Tiger Woods.”

Obama golfed 333 times as president, according to Mark Knoller of CBS News, who since the 1970s has been considered the foremost expert on presidential scheduling.

Greg Lovett/Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

A Coast Guard vessel patrols the perimeter of Mar-a-Lago during President Donald Trump’s stay in Palm Beach on Wednesday, November 22, 2017. (Greg Lovett / The Palm Beach Post)

Before Wednesday’s visit, Knoller said he had tallied 49 visits by Trump to golf clubs, including 15 to Trump International and 23 to Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va. Trump’s last known round of golf was in Japan with Abe on Nov. 5.

Since becoming president, Trump’s golf partners have included Washington Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins, future NFL Hall of Famer Peyton Manning and professional golfers Ernie Els and Rory McIlroy. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee have also joined Trump on the links. As president-elect, Trump golfed last December with Woods at Trump International.